Dear readers – please find below an article by the Women’s Initiatives for Gender Justice reflecting on some of the gender issues for child soldiers in the case against Thomas Lubanga Dyilo. The views and opinions expressed here do not necessarily reflect the views and opinions of the Open Society Justice Initiative. The Women’s Initiatives…
Prosecutors and victims’ advocates presented their closing arguments today in the landmark trial of former Congolese warlord Mr. Thomas Lubanga at the International Criminal Court inThe Hague. More than a dozen lawyers and advocates stood in turn and urged the judges to convict Mr. Lubanga of the war crimes of conscripting, enlisting, and using child…
Some six years ago, the International Criminal Court started proceedings in the case of Thomas Lubanga Dyilo, a militia commander from Eastern Congo accused of conscripting, enlisting and using child soldiers. His trial was the first to open at the ICC in The Hague in January 2009; it is now entering its final stages, with the scheduled hearing of final arguments from the prosecution and…
Irrespective of how Thomas Lubanga’s trial at the International Criminal Court (ICC) concludes, it has indisputably helped to catapult into the global limelight the phenomenon and plight of child soldiers. By taking former child soldiers to The Hague to recount how they were conscripted, the grueling training they endured, the battles they fought, and how…
Former Congolese rebel leader Thomas Lubanga told child soldiers to get women, cows, and vehicles, reassuring them that “everything belongs to soldiers,” according to testimony heard today at his trial at the International Criminal Court (ICC). A witness who worked with several former child soldiers made this claim today while testifying about one of the…
Judges in the Thomas Lubanga war crimes trial have directed prosecutors to reveal to the defense details of the professional backgrounds of the intermediaries they used in gathering evidence against the accused. At least two of the intermediaries will testify in the trial at the request of judges. An appeal by the Office of The…
The main highlight of the Thomas Lubanga trial this week was the presentation by the defense of several documents, which allegedly showed that at least seven prosecution witnesses who claimed to have been child soldiers lied about their identities. The documents included school reports and registers from the institutions which various prosecution witnesses claimed they…
Thomas Lubanga’s defense has today presented to court various documents that it claimed showed that at least seven prosecution witnesses, who told court that they were former child soldiers, lied about their identities or the schools they attended. The documents presented included several records from schools in Ituri province in the Democratic Republic of Congo…
Prosecutors in the war crimes trial of Thomas Lubanga are set to interview a former suspect in the war crimes investigations by the Office of The Prosecutor (OTP) at the International Criminal Court (ICC). Judge Adrian Fulford on Tuesday gave prosecutors the greenlight to interview the suspect, who goes by the name of ‘Witness 3’.…
A prosecution witness, who was unable to testify in the Thomas Lubanga war crimes trial last year due to ill health, will give evidence next Monday, according to presiding judge Adrian Fulford. ‘Witness 297’, a former child soldier in the Union of Congolese Patriots (UPC), the militia group that Mr. Lubanga is alleged to have…
Thomas Lubanga on trial at the International Criminal Court. Thomas Lubanga Dyilo is the first person to be tried by the International Criminal Court. A former rebel leader in the Democratic Republic of Congo, Lubanga is accused of conscripting, enlisting, and using child soldiers. More
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